This paper explores the ways in which whiteness has functioned in the construction of Buddhist modernism in North America. Drawing on ethnography and textual analysis, it outlines key attempts by Buddhists of Color, and their white allies, to expose and overcome such whiteness before turning to a detailed examination of the pioneering work of Zenju Earthlyn Manuel from the Soto Zen lineage and Larry Yang from the Insight Community to forge an alternative Buddhist hermeneutics of multiculturalism and difference. In conclusion, it situates their work as reflecting critical, collective, and contextual turns in North American Buddhism that signify a wider shift from Buddhist modernism to Buddhism in a postmodern and post-colonial climate.

Ann Gleig is an Associate Professor of religion and cultural studies at the University of Central Florida. Her area of specialization is Buddhism in America and her forthcoming monograph American Dharma: Buddhism Beyond Modernity will be published by Yale University Press in February 2019.

A few months ago a group of colleagues and I at El Colegio de la Frontera Norte (El Colef) and the Universidad Iberoamericana in Mexico created an online seminar series on diaspora studies, called the Seminario Permanente de Estudios sobre Diásporas.

During this initial year the presentations have focused primarily on Mexico and its diaspora in the US and the sessions have been held in Spanish. The videos of the first three sessions can be consulted on our Facebook site for anyone interested:

This Thursday, September 28th at 12pm CST (Mexico City / Chicago time) we are happy to announce the participation of Katrina Burgess of Tufts University who will present part of her upcoming book Courting Migrants: How States Make Diasporas and Diasporas Make States, in which she compares the diaspora policies of states such as Turkey and Mexico. Alexandra Délano of the New School will be her commentator.

As mentioned, the seminar is virtual and anyone interested in joining can do so using the following link:

Future sessions will be held in both Spanish and English and will seek to cover cases in both Latin America and in other geographical contexts. Ultimately, we hope to promote collaborative comparative research and dialogue between researchers working on diaspora studies.

Loughborough University’s Centre for Research in Communication and Culture is organising an event on Religion as Political Communication on 7th June 2018. There will be four speakers (see programme below). You are all welcome to attend. The event is free with refreshments provided, butplease book your place in advance (via the link below) for catering purpose:

Religion is communicated politically in multiple ways: by religious institutions and individuals, by governments with different approaches to religion, via various artistic and cultural expressions, by secular news media, and via digital platforms and communities (Lundby 2017). The types and contents of politically communicated religion are diverse and complex, ranging from the Church of England’s conservative stance on marriage as reserved for heterosexual couples, French lawmakers interpreting religious symbols such as the veil as ‘too political’, the West-End musical success ‘The Book of Mormon’, terrorist acts of violence committed in the name of religion, to representations of ‘Muslims’ as a non-diversified group. Religion can communicate political stances in both direct and indirect ways, such as when drawings of the Prophet Mohammad are considered as unacceptably irreverent expressions of free speech, or when specific positions on abortion, creationism, stem-cell research and euthanasia are inferred when someone declares their stance as ‘religious’. In this symposium, internationally leading scholars on religion and politics are invited to address and debate religion as political communication.

Abstract submission and Registrations are now open for our 2018 Symposia.

The Spring meeting will be held at Queens College – 19, 20 & 21 March.

Abstract Submission Deadline – 5 March.

Early Registration Deadline – 14 February.

Future Symposia Dates

30 July to 1 August – Oxford.

December 5 – 7 December – at The Old Library in the Oxford University Church, Oxford.

The meetings will be held at The Old Library in the Oxford University Church of St Mary. Constructed in 1320, The Old Library is the first university (as opposed to college) building in Oxford and therefore uniquely important; this is where the nascent University began.

The sessions will be hosted by Canon Brian Mountford MBE, former Vicar of St Mary’s. Dr Mountford is a Fellow of St Hilda’s College in the University of Oxford.

You are invited to present a paper on an aspect of religious studies, or you may wish to attend as an observer. The symposium is interdisciplinary and has a broad-based theme.

Pre-Conference date: August 7, 2018Deadline for paper proposals: January 15, 2018Notification of acceptances: End of February 2018

The International Society of Media, Religion & Culture will be hosting a Pre-Conference for doctoral students on the day before the ISMRC bi-annual conference at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

This pre-conference will provide doctoral students the opportunity to present their research, receive feedback from leaders in the field, discuss theoretical, methodological and professional challenges, as well as network with other peers.

Interested students should prepare a) 1-2 page (500-800 word) extended abstract of the student’s thesis/major research project and b) a sample paper/chapter (up to 5000 words) of writing related to the topic.

All materials are to be prepared in English and are due on or before 15th of January 2018.

Current environmental, economic, social, and political challenges indicate that people are losing faith in existing power structures and mechanisms for coping with crises. This creates increasingly divided societies, riven by ideological battles for the future of the human and the more than human world. Religion has a place in this picture. Not only is it often a source of divisions; it can also be a source for alternative means of addressing them.

These divisions take new and as yet unclear shapes, which sociologists are only now beginning to comprehend. It is not enough to refer to the struggle between ‘tradition’ and ‘modernity’, terms that dominated sociology through the 1970s. Nor do the tropes ‘colonialism vs. anti-colonialism’ and the ‘clash of civilizations’ adequately explain what is going on. Nor, arguably, does ‘populism vs neo-liberalism’ fully capture such things as the recent clashes between cosmopolitan and anticosmopolitan actors in the major Western democracies. Each of these has a piece of the picture; none of them captures it all.

What is religion’s role in this situation: as a creator of divisions, as a locus of power, and as a ground of resistance? How does religion influence our divided societies? How is religion influenced in turn?

We invite paper abstract submissions for the following RC22 sessions:

Religion and National Identity

Religion and Secularity

Religion and Non-Violent Social Movements

Religion, Gender and Family Violence

Religion in the East Asian Public Sphere

Religion in the Public Square

Social Theory and Religion

Religion and Migration: Contrasting First and Second Generations

Dynamics of Gender, Religion, and Intersectionality

Prejudice, Exclusion, and Violence in a Transnational World

Media and Religious Radicalization: Gatekeeping and the Construction of Extremism

Gender, Feminism, and Islam and the West

Candlelight Revolution and Religion in South Korea

Religious Texts of Diversity Vs Exclusion

We will also be including the following invited sessions in our RC22 program:

The Special Programme Islam, the Modern Nation State and Transnational Movements has entered its final phase. The next and penultimate deadline for applications is May 24, 2017.

The funding initiative is aimed at researchers who, with an eye to current developments, are examining the emergence of political movements in the Islamic world at the national and/or transnational level. The programme takes a look at the dynamics between Islamic teachings, Islamism, nationalism and transnational orientations and environments. Scientific discussion of the countries and regions of the Islamic world should bring together expertise possessing regional and thematic focus in order to allow the problems associated with areas of conflict to be expounded upon, particularly with regards to global influences and processes of cultural exchange. The research programme addresses scholars of all disciplines in the humanities and social sciences.

The individual research areas are:
1. Historical and present day Islamic systems of society and state
2. The concept of nation, national movements and nationalism in Islamic civilisation
3. Islamic fundamentalism or Islamic emancipation?
4. Transnational civil society movements in the Islamic world
5. Islamic states in the international world system.